Ask three training providers about driver safety training for employees and all three will probably tell you it is mandatory every two years. Then try to find the regulation that sets that deadline. You won’t find it — and you won’t even find the Czech term „řidič referent” (non-professional company driver) in the law. Even so, it would be a mistake to wave the whole topic away: the duty to train employees who drive as part of their job genuinely exists. It just comes from somewhere other than where most offers derive it.
We’ll go through who a non-professional company driver actually is, where the training duty comes from, where the myth of the two-year deadline came from, what the training should cover and how to set an interval that makes sense for your operation and holds up during an inspection.
Who is a non-professional company driver when the law doesn’t recognise the term
„Řidič referent” (sometimes „referentský řidič”) is the established label for an employee who drives a motor vehicle in connection with their work, but driving is not the type of work agreed in their contract. Typically:
- a sales representative visiting clients in a company car,
- a service technician or inspection technician travelling to jobs,
- an accountant who drops documents off at a government office once a month,
- a manager or executive in an employment relationship who uses the company car daily,
- an employee who sets out on a business trip in their own car with the employer’s consent.
The counterpart is professional drivers — typically drivers of lorries and buses, who are subject to a special regime of regular professional competence development under the regulations on driver professional competence. That regime has its own rules, its own deadlines and accredited training centres, and it is not to be confused with training for non-professional drivers. This article covers only the latter.
The key point is that the dividing line is not the type of vehicle or how often someone drives, but whether the employee drives while performing work tasks. Even a single trip to the post office in a company car is the performance of work — and the associated risks fall on the employer. That is why in practice the training also applies to people who “hardly ever drive anyway”.
Where the training duty actually comes from
No regulation sets out “driver safety training for employees” as a separate, named duty. The basis is § 103 (2) of the Labour Code (Act No. 262/2006 Sb., as amended): the employer is obliged to provide employees with training on the legal and other regulations ensuring occupational safety and health protection that relate to the work they perform and to the risks they may come into contact with.
And here is the crucial link that turns a general sentence into a concrete duty: § 349 (1) of the Labour Code expressly includes traffic regulations among “legal and other regulations ensuring OSH”. So as soon as an employee drives as part of their work, the rules of the road belong among the regulations the employer briefs them on — exactly as they brief them on the risks of a warehouse or a workshop. The framework is completed by Act No. 309/2006 Sb., on ensuring further conditions of OSH, which underpins risk prevention arrangements within a company.
Two practical conclusions follow from this:
- Training for non-professional drivers is not an optional extra or an invention of training agencies. It is a standard part of OSH training for employees whose work involves driving — it follows from the general duty to train according to the risks of the specific job.
- It has no statutory deadline and no prescribed syllabus. The employer determines both — and that is precisely where the most widespread myth in this whole area comes from.
The “mandatory every two years” myth
The two-year deadline appears in offers so often that many employers take it to be statutory. It isn’t. Under § 103 (3) of the Labour Code, the content and frequency of training on legal and other OSH regulations is determined by the employer — based on a risk assessment, not according to a universal table.
Where did the number two come from? Most likely from several sources at once: from the regime for professional drivers, who genuinely do undergo regular professional competence development under special regulations, from older corporate practice, and from commercial inertia — a two-year cycle is easy to sell and easy to remember.
In practice this means: a two-year interval may be a perfectly sensible choice for a given company. The mistake isn’t the interval itself, but the belief that it is mandated — and that therefore it doesn’t matter what the training covers, who attends it and whether it matches how driving actually happens in the company. An interval chosen “because that’s what everyone does” is hard to justify during an inspection; an interval grounded in risk and captured in writing in an internal regulation will hold up.
How to set an interval that makes sense
The starting point is exposure to risk: who drives, how often, in what and where. In practice, roughly the following tiering works well — this is common practice, not statutory deadlines:
| Situation | Common practice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Occasional trips (post office, government office, exceptional business trip) | once every 2–3 years, quite reasonably as a block within periodic OSH training | low exposure, a shared session covers the basics |
| Regular trips (sales reps, service technicians) | once every 1–2 years | high mileage, more frequent changes to rules and vehicles |
| Vans, trailers, trips abroad | usually once a year | specific risks: loading, load securing, different rules |
| After a road accident or repeated damage | ad-hoc training without waiting for the scheduled date | training should respond to actual events in the company |
Alongside regular repetition, expect ad-hoc triggers: a substantial amendment to the rules of the road, assignment of a different type of vehicle (a van instead of a passenger car, the first electric vehicle in the fleet) and of course a new employee who is to drive — who should be trained before they are handed the keys for the first time.
Record the chosen interval and the group of people to be trained in an internal company vehicle policy or in your OSH documentation. Without a written rule, it is hard to explain during an inspection or after an accident why training was done the way it was.
What driver safety training should cover
There is no prescribed syllabus — it should match the risks and the way the company uses its vehicles. Workable training for non-professional drivers typically covers:
- changes to the rules of the road since the last session,
- the employer’s internal rules: who may use which vehicle, vehicle assignment, private trips, refuelling, parking, reporting damage,
- pre-trip vehicle checks (lights, tyres, fluids, mandatory equipment) and who to report defects to,
- planning longer routes, breaks and driver fatigue — with regard to the regulations on work organisation in transport operations,
- phones and navigation while driving, seat belts, carrying loads in the cabin and the boot,
- what to do after a road accident: when to call the police, the accident report form, who to inform within the company,
- alcohol, medication and health indisposition in relation to driving.
The same package should include a reminder that a road accident during a business trip may at the same time be an occupational injury, if the harm to health occurred while performing work tasks or in direct connection with them. The ordinary journey to and from work is not treated as an occupational injury. We cover the procedure and record-keeping in the article on occupational injuries in a company. And along with the training, it is worth checking whether the people concerned hold a valid driving licence and whether their position accounts for driving in occupational medical assessments under the regulations on occupational health services.
The most common mistakes in practice
- Only employees with an assigned car are trained. The colleague who takes business trips in their own vehicle gets forgotten — yet that is the performance of work just as much as with a company vehicle.
- A new employee gets the keys before the training. The first trip happens on their start date, the training record appears a month later.
- The interval in the policy doesn’t match reality. The policy says two years, the last record is three years old — a contradiction with your own regulation is exactly what an inspection finds most easily.
- A syllabus with no link to the company. A generic presentation on traffic regulations with no internal rules, vehicle types or actual events from the operation.
- No evidence. The training “was done verbally”, but after an accident there is nothing to show what the driver was briefed on.
What training documentation should look like to hold up — a syllabus with time allocation, an attendance sheet, verification of knowledge, the date of the next session — we described in detail in the article on OSH training for employees; the same applies to non-professional drivers, just with a traffic syllabus. The duty also extends to employees working under an agreement to perform work (DPP) or an agreement on work activity (DPČ), if they drive as part of their work.
Who may deliver the training and how to handle it in a single session
For training of non-professional drivers, no regulation requires an accredited lecturer or a driving school — this is not the professional competence development of professional drivers under Act No. 247/2000 Sb. The employer, however, is responsible for the content, frequency, method of verifying knowledge and documentation. They may use someone within the company who demonstrably knows the legal regulations, operational risks and internal rules relevant to the given syllabus, or an external lecturer; simply engaging a supplier does not transfer the employer’s responsibility.
§ 9 of Act No. 309/2006 Sb. does not set out the qualification of every lecturer. It governs who carries out risk prevention tasks: an employer with up to 25 employees may carry them out personally if they have the necessary knowledge, whereas for larger companies the law requires a professionally competent person depending on the number of employees. If training for non-professional drivers is built on an assessment of traffic-related risks and on the local operational safety regulation under Government Regulation No. 168/2002 Sb., the person who lawfully carries out risk prevention for the employer should be involved in preparing it.
E-learning also works well for non-professional drivers: the content is largely theoretical and the system can document who completed the module and with what result. A practical block makes sense for vans, trailers and high-mileage drivers.
The most economical route for a small or medium-sized company: don’t handle non-professional drivers as a separate order, but add them as a block to periodic OSH and fire safety training — one session, one attendance sheet with its own syllabus, one call-out fee for the lecturer. We break down what the price of such a session consists of and how to write a comparable request for quotation in the article on the cost of OSH and fire safety training for a company.
And if you’re wondering who can arrange all of this for you: employee training from SOHE routinely includes the block for non-professional drivers. Send us a no-obligation enquiry with the number of drivers, vehicle types and shifts — we’ll come back with a proposed syllabus, an interval for your policy and a specific training date at your premises.
Frequently asked questions
Is the two-year deadline set by law?
No. No legal regulation sets a deadline for repeating driver safety training for employees. Under § 103 (3) of the Labour Code, the content and frequency of training is determined by the employer according to the risks of their activity, and this is usually enshrined in their OSH documentation. The two-year interval is a custom, not a statutory provision — and you need to be able to justify it, not just invoke it.
Does it also apply to an employee who takes a business trip in their own car?
Yes. What matters is the purpose of the trip, not who owns the vehicle. As soon as an employee drives in connection with performing work tasks, it is the performance of work with everything that entails — including training, and including the fact that any accident is assessed as an occupational injury.
Does a driving school have to deliver the training?
No. Driving school accreditation is needed for the professional competence development of professional drivers under Act No. 247/2000 Sb. Training for non-professional drivers is part of OSH training under the Labour Code and may be led by a professionally competent person in risk prevention, or by the employer themselves if they meet the conditions.
Who does professional competence development under 247/2000 Sb. apply to?
Drivers of categories C1, C1+E, C, C+E, D1, D1+E, D and D+E, i.e. lorries and buses. An ordinary employee with a category B licence is not among them — that is the most common confusion in this whole area.
Sources for this article
- Employee training – a SOHE service: initial and periodic OSH and fire safety training, including a block for non-professional drivers.
- OSH training for employees: when to repeat it, what it should cover and how to document it – intervals, content and documentation of OSH training.
- How much OSH and fire safety training costs for a company – forms of training, price components and what a good order looks like.
- Occupational injury in a company: what to do immediately and how to keep the injury log – the procedure after an injury, which also applies to an accident on a business trip.
- Zákon č. 262/2006 Sb. – the Labour Code; § 103 (2) governs the duty to provide training on legal and other OSH regulations, § 103 (3) the employer’s determination of its content and frequency, § 349 (1) includes traffic regulations among these regulations.
- Zákon č. 309/2006 Sb. – on ensuring further conditions of OSH; § 9 sets out when an employer may carry out risk prevention personally and when they need a professionally competent person.
- Nařízení vlády č. 168/2002 Sb. – work organisation and work procedures in transport operations using means of transport, including the local operational safety regulation.
- Zákon č. 247/2000 Sb. – the special regime for acquiring and developing the professional competence of drivers; training for non-professional drivers under the general OSH duty is not to be confused with this regime.
The legal position was verified against the current wording in the e-Sbírka as at 31 July 2026: the Labour Code (No. 262/2006 Sb.) in the wording effective from 1 January 2026, Act No. 309/2006 Sb. as amended by Act No. 318/2025 Sb., Government Regulation No. 168/2002 Sb. and Act No. 247/2000 Sb. The intervals given as “common practice” are not statutory deadlines; what is decisive is the risk assessment of the specific operation.
This text is for information purposes and does not replace legal advice. The specific training regime for non-professional company drivers, its content, form and frequency must be set according to the actual operation, vehicle fleet and risk assessment.
Do you have people in your company who drive on business, and nobody knows when they were last trained? Employee training from SOHE covers OSH, fire safety and non-professional drivers in a single session — including the syllabus, the records and an interval for your policy. Send us a no-obligation enquiry or write to info@sohe.cz and we’ll arrange a date to suit your shifts and operation.